This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

The late singer and talk-show host Mike Douglas once offered a piece of wisdom that has stuck with me in the decades since I heard him say it.

He asked a guest on his afternoon talk show: “Why is it that a hot dog tastes like a filet mignon when you’re eating it at a baseball game?”

Why, indeed?

Well, my wife and I have discovered on our brief excursions in our fifth wheel that we can ask essentially the same question about any meal we eat inside our recreational vehicle: Why does our breakfast taste like a gourmet meal prepared at the finest restaurant on the planet?

OK, so maybe I’m being a bit hyperbolic. So what? I hope you get the point.

We prepared breakfast at a campsite at Lake Tawakoni State Park east of Dallas and, by golly, it tasted like something that came straight from Paul Prudhomme’s kitchen in New Orleans.

What was it? Turkey bacon, scrambled eggs and cantaloupe.

Hey, we aren’t gourmet chefs, but we do enjoy the taste of a meal in our recreational vehicle.

I trust others who read this blog – particularly those who also like to travel in their RVs – can understand what I’m saying here.

I totally understood Mike Douglas’s question about hot dogs at the ballpark. I’ve consumed more than my share of ‘em while watching a ballgame. He’s totally right about how they taste well, um, different in that context than they do around the dining room table at home.

The same can be said about eating in an RV.

We haven’t done enough of it – yet – to become expert commentators on it.

Maybe we’ll tire of the food cooked on our propane-fired oven once we hit the road more frequently and for longer period of time.

But I doubt that will happen.